Baseball

“I wrote 63 songs this year. They’re all about Jeter.” Just kidding. The game we love, the players we hate, and more.

Culture and Criticism

From Norman Mailer to Wendy Pepper — everything on film, TV, books, music, and snacks (shut up, raisins), plus the Girls’ Bike Club.

Donors Choose and Contests

Helping public schools, winning prizes, sending a crazy lady in a tomato costume out in public.

Stories, True and Otherwise

Monologues, travelogues, fiction, and fart humor. And hens. Don’t forget the hens.

The Vine

The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!

TN Read-Along #12: Gunn’s Golden Rules
September 27, 2011 · 12 Comments
TN Read-Along #12: <I>Gunn’s Golden Rules</I>

I’m pretty excited to say that our next read-along tome is Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work. I think it’s available in every possible edition; let’s read and discuss starting Thursday …

The Vine: September 23, 2011
September 23, 2011 · 9 Comments
The Vine: September 23, 2011

I’ve tried Google and asked my Facebook friends: one suggested I try Tomato Nation. The work I am trying to find was written in German, and is something between a short essay and a vignette. …

The Vine: September 21, 2011
September 21, 2011 · 36 Comments
The Vine: September 21, 2011

I broke up with my boyfriend of about 5 months a little while ago. We had met on a blind date set up by an acquaintance, so we were pretty much starting from scratch. The …

The Vine: September 16, 2011
September 16, 2011 · 28 Comments
The Vine: September 16, 2011

I’m hoping The Nation can help me find a book.  When I was in late grade school, which would have been in the early 1980s, I had the reading skills to read fairly advanced chapter …

Tomato Nation Read-Along #12: Poll
September 15, 2011 · 7 Comments
Tomato Nation Read-Along #12: Poll

Gunn and Grann return for another shot at group-reading glory, along with Scientologists, my baseball grandpa, and “incon-thee-vable!”‘s brother. Pick us a good one! Poll’s open until next week.

Save The Day Shirt Sale!
September 15, 2011 · 4 Comments
Save The Day Shirt Sale!

Save The Day shirts — now on sale! If you wanted one in the springtime but didn’t win one, or didn’t know they even existed and now want to fly the contest colors, or whatever, …

The Vine: September 14, 2011
September 14, 2011 · 52 Comments
The Vine: September 14, 2011

Help me please, I’m having an ethical dilemma and I can’t stand it.
It started on Craigslist (of course). I put up an ad in “women seeking men” and a million guys replied. One stood out. …

Who Here Gave Their Lives
September 11, 2011 · 69 Comments
Who Here Gave Their Lives

Abraham Lincoln passed his last hours in a cramped back bedroom in a boardinghouse across the street from Ford’s Theater, mercifully unconscious, folded awkwardly onto a bed too short for him, laboring to breathe. A …

The Vine: September 9, 2011
September 9, 2011 · 37 Comments
The Vine: September 9, 2011

On my drive to work I often drink coffee and eat cinnamon graham crackers. Sometimes during my lunch hour, I’ll go out to the parking lot and sit in my car, reading a book and …

Back to School: High Art, SLaP, and more
September 8, 2011 · 13 Comments
Back to School: <I>High Art</I>, SLaP, and more

A roundup of what I’ve written and watched recently…